The much-anticipated Golden Gloves tournament headlined by the crossroads bout between Rowan “Brave Heart” Campbell and Ryno “The Lion” Liebenberg has been moved from Saturday evening on the 13th of March to the following Sunday afternoon on the 14th. This is necessitated by the curfew currently in place which makes staging a tournament in the evening an impossibility.
The ever-present danger of fighters testing positive for the virus with resulting cancellations has prompted a decision by UFC Fight Pass not to broadcast any more boxing before the end of March. That means that Kevin Lerena’s fight with Bilal Laggoune for the WBC bridgerweight silver title will not be on the card. “We will have to postpone the Lerena fight. I can’t proceed with a fight of that magnitude without the backing of US TV. Hopefully, it will happen in mid-April,” says promoter Rodney Berman.
Amid all the madness there is one silver lining: The Campbell-Liebenberg clash will be upgraded to a defense of Campbell’s South African super middleweight title, as well as his IBO All-Africa belt and will now be over twelve rounds. That certainly makes things more interesting!
The main event is well supported. ABU All-African junior bantamweight champion, Ricardo “Magic Man” Malajika takes on South African champion, Sabelo Ngebinyana, while undefeated former South African and IBF Intercontinental junior featherweight champion, Lodumo “9mm” Lamati, will make his Golden Gloves debut and shake off the cobwebs by taking on Said Mohamed Hassan from Tanzania in a rematch. A shoulder injury of Hassan brought a premature end to their first encounter. Both bouts will be over eight rounds.
Three additional preliminary bouts will also provide much-needed action for the youngsters of the sport.
